UN releases slimmed down draft outcome at COP 21

(France, Le Bourget) French Foreign Minister and COP 21 President Laurent Fabius, a Socialist, released this afternoon a substantially slimmed down draft of the final outcome of the UN international climate summit. You can read it at CFACT.org. He stated that he is “confident” the UN will achieve a final deal this week.

It is unclear, with the document emerging from behind closed door sessions, to what extent this version enjoys wide support among COP 21’s various factions. Speculation is widespread that Fabius is using his powers as President of the COP to pare down the text with an eye toward satisfying requests by President Obama’s negotiating team to provide the U.S. with a largely non-binding document it can use to try and avoid Senate ratification.

If you’ve been following CFACT’s reporting on this process, you will recall that an earlier, slimmed down version in Bonn quickly bulked back up when parties with special interests demanded that their pet provisions be put back in.

With only two days left in the official timetable to finalize the agreement, the challenge to reach a decision on the many remaining options is daunting. COPs routinely go into extra innings, don’t be surprised if there is last minute drama this time.

The present draft strips out some of the more frightening provisions seen in earlier versions, such as an “International Tribunal of Climate Justice,” and replaces them with more benign sounding provisions, in this case, implementation “mechanism.”

The draft is riddled with unique UN double-speak and politically correct provisions, such as the insistence that any climate agreement must be “gender sensitive,” “sustainable,” and “responsive.”

Some key factors:

Temperature target

Attempting to cap temperature change to two degrees C above pre-industrial levels has moved back up to option #1 in the latest draft, with the more radical 1.5 degree target that has been picking up steam still remaining in the document as a third option. A compromise calling for a target “well below” two degrees C could be where they are headed. Keep in mind that any of these targets are largely arbitrary and the emissions reductions needed to achieve them are wholly derived from climate computer models that have an abysmal track record for accuracy.

Binding treaty or nonbinding agreement

It remains to be seen just how binding this agreement will be and how strong President Obama’s case will be for avoiding Senate ratification. The current draft contains implentation “mechanisms,” but no real penalties for non-compliance. The agreement requires “transparency” and regular “stock-taking,” however, leaves it up to parties to report on their own emissions. Just this week China attempted to cover up an air pollution emergency in an attempt to avoid an embarrassing admission during the COP. This agreement leaves the door wide open for countries to over promise, under perform and falsify their data to cover up.

Differentiated responsibility

In recent years, large countries such as China and India have transitioned to market economies and experienced explosive economic growth as a result. They quickly joined the ranks of the world’s most powerful economies and largest CO2 emitters. However, they are not prepared to shoulder an equal share of the burdens the UN climate treaty imposes. China and India do not appear on the UN’s “Annex One” list of developed economies and as a result could get a pass on many of the agreement’s responsibilities. India has been particularly vocal in defending this, rationalizing that during the 20th century their emissions were far less.

Note that the U.S. monthly trade deficit with China recently hit $37.8 billion and China holds $1.2 trillion in U.S. government debt.

If President Obama and other leaders of prosperous nations give in to China and India and the rest on the issue of differentiated responsibility, they will be ensuring that the agreement has little or no impact on actually reducing global emissions. They will also be ensuring that manufacturing and other economic activities continue to shift from the developed world to nations like China, taking jobs along with them.

Zero emissions

The draft outcome continues to contain provisions calling for a reduction to “zero greenhouse gas emissions” by the middle of the century. This would be impossible to achieve and devastatingly painful to attempt absent a rescue by major technological breakthroughs, such as unlimited fusion power. Don’t look to wind and solar to provide this kind of power.

Climate finance (Climate shakedown?)

Finance remains a major sticking point. The latest draft outcome retains language calling for developed nations to contribute $100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020 to be increased from there. Language favored by the U.S. giving large developing economies the opportunity to contribute made it into the draft as well as well, although it faces substantial opposition.

Today Secretary of State John Kerry spoke at the COP and announced that the U.S. would provide an additional $800 million in adaptation funds. However, President Obama has been having a terrible time coming up with the billions he has already promised to the UN “Green Climate Fund.”
Language favored by the U.S. calling for climate finance to be raised “from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including additional sources” is in the current draft. A close eye should be kept on this as it may provide an open-ended method for Obama to raise funds Congress refuses to allocate by shaking down private businesses.

Developing nations continue to want climate finance to come from public funds and may resist this inclusion.

Loss and damage

The latest draft outcome contains the seeds of what could lead to developed nations accepting unlimited responsibility for “loss and damage” suffered by developing nations from severe weather and other events. It provides for a four year process to develop a loss and damage mechanism. The finance provisions include coverage for loss and damage. This could mean an ongoing commitment by the U.S., for instance, in just a few years, to provide perhaps $30-40 billion per year in climate finance with developing nations in a position to file claims against this fund. In effect developed nations would end up with liability for losses experienced by developing nations for which they bear no actual responsibility.

With two days left, the UN is closer to creating a successor treaty/agreement to the Kyoto protocol than ever before. They are also poised to achieve their goal of bringing the U.S. into the UN climate regime. However, even at this late hour, substantial divisions remain. Brace for drama.

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46 Comments

prm2012
December 9, 2015 at 3:16 PM

Why is these people wasting billions on a hoax, that is what climate change/Golobal Warming. A bif FARCE.

Goldminer
December 9, 2015 at 4:46 PM

Because the World financial system has been trashed by the Rich and powerful NOW they want us ALL to pay for it with another scam. I say shoot first ask questions later is the best option when faced with Climate driven by Man ZOMBIE CULTISTS.

prm2012
December 9, 2015 at 5:56 PM

You got that right, another scam. I read Obama promised Billions, and Kerry promised 800.Million, where is all this money going to come from, you got it the TAX PAYERS.

Concerned
December 9, 2015 at 6:05 PM

You are right. Very knowledgeable people are telling this is a scam and it continues to grow into a bigger scam. The UN want the power to control nations around the world. And as they have proven in nearly every instance, at least 50% of any money given to the UN goes to the elite in the UN and the elite of the country to whom the money is given, with very little (if any) going to the poor of that country. Today I listed to the US Senate review committee on AGW and the Democrats continue to use the 97% number for consensus that was disproven more than 5 years ago and that 97% number turned out to be 72 people, not thousands of scientists as they continue to claim. Totally dishonest.

Dano2
December 9, 2015 at 6:25 PM

Clearly there is still a market among the Faux “News” faithful for claiming that:

o Thousands of scientists;

o across a century and a half;

o in a wide range of specialties;

o in dozens of countries;

o on six continents;

o speaking scores of languages;

o having over ten thousand peer-reviewed papers;

o are involved in a complex plot to ‘fake’ AGW…

o but have been exposed by a few intrepid bloggers and fossil fuel billionaires.

Has there ever been – ever – a less likely conspiracy theory ever than this one? In the history of the world??

Best,

D

Pam Dunn
December 9, 2015 at 6:32 PM

Clearly, there ARE total morons incapable of rational thought and reasoning powers to see that everything listed is a FACT and completely refutes ALL the IPCC and other ALGORE climate BULLfeces.

AllenBarclayAllen
December 9, 2015 at 10:22 PM

And all of these scientist PH D’s agreeing on the same thing which proves their complete Loonessey ! When have you ever seen two real PH D’s agree on anything ?? Thought so !! They don’t Exist ! When Quasi Pseudo Scientist form a Conscientious Something STINKs in DENMARK ! Consensus does not Exist in real science, and real scientist in the pursuit of real science want to be proven wrong at some point so that science can advance and continue instead of being caught in the Quagmire of Dogmatic STUPIDITY !

Brin Jenkins
December 10, 2015 at 11:17 AM

Exactly, the shoulders of others refining their theories. Even Newton’s theories are revised.

Dale
December 10, 2015 at 12:25 PM

Good points Allen.
Actually any agreements supporting CAGW, if any among “actual scientists”, is relatively small and this has been demonstrated over and over again. The “know-nothing” crowd continue to make rash unsupported claims based on propaganda released from GOVERNMENT SPONSORED AND SUPPORTED groups and organizations pushing the socialist agenda.
As anyone who has ever belonged to a large organization knows only too well, any comparison between the motherhood grandiose statements of large organizations and the feelings of the individual members is coincidental at best.
A little research reveals dozens, maybe hundreds of present and past member of NASA and the IPCC (just to name a couple), who have spoken out vehemently against the organization’s politically approved but totally scientifically unsupported claims. Many of these same people have been fired or demoted for expressing views which go against the party lines.
There are even some so low on the intelligence scale that they think “consensus” is a scientific rather than a political term. They foolheartedly think statements like, “the science is settled” is actually a valid scientific statement. These same people fail to understand that any scientific(?) research engaged in without adhering to the “scientific method” is not science at all but rather complete garbage or political nonsense, at best. Such believes serve only to demonstrate how scientifically-ignorant such individuals really are.
Regardless how hard we may try, we can’t get these “followers” to look at the data, examine the methods used to collect the data, examine the objectivity of the researchers(s), consider the scientific rational in terms of what is understood, or anything else which may actually shed real light on their cult beliefs. The best we can do with such ignorant uneducated and silly people is to ignore them or as I sometimes do, allow them to shoot off their mouths showing others how scientific-illiterate they really are.

Dano2
December 10, 2015 at 1:05 PM

Laughable: Many of these same people have been fired or demoted for expressing views which go against the party lines.

You are utterly unable to show this is true.

Best,

D

Brin Jenkins
December 10, 2015 at 11:14 AM

Strange guy who is unable to explain and yet seems to fervently believe man’s contribution matter that much! Deluded sums him up.

Dano2
December 10, 2015 at 12:49 PM

Weak deflection.

Best,

D

Redbird
December 10, 2015 at 5:06 PM

Let’s see if ‘ole Dano can follow the math here.
Total increase in molecules of CO2 in the last 30 years = 200 (approx.) per million molecules in the atmosphere.
Therefore, the total effective increase which is supposed to be causing all the potential damage is 200/1,000,000 = 0.0002 %
And I’m guessing Dano is OK with our government using our tax money to the tune of $45 Billion per year to stop such a small amount of non-pollution going into the atmosphere.

Dano2
December 10, 2015 at 5:14 PM

Total increase in molecules of CO2 in the last 30 years = 200
[citation needed]

When you realize by how much you got the number wrong, it will be even more entertaining.

Best,

D

Dick
December 9, 2015 at 3:55 PM

prm2012
To answer your question: Money

Peter Osborne
December 9, 2015 at 4:02 PM

Quite so, the “money for nothing and the chicks are free” is a lure that those nations that have failed to develop a viable economy just cannot resist.

Brin Jenkins
December 10, 2015 at 11:31 AM

Most of them had a warmer Climate and survival was not the uppermost priority. Perhaps we need assistance with our colder climate? It is heat that seems to be their concern, and they are the ones benefiting most.

Goldminer
December 9, 2015 at 4:43 PM

The arrogance of these Fascist communists knows no bounds.

Dano2
December 9, 2015 at 6:26 PM

Which are they? Fascists or communists?

Best,

D

Pam Dunn
December 9, 2015 at 6:34 PM

BOTH !!!

Brin Jenkins
December 10, 2015 at 11:20 AM

You won’t differentiate old chum. Left or right, when you get to the top of the heap there is a dictator in place kicking arses.

Dano2
December 10, 2015 at 1:04 PM

It is one or the other, not both.

/basic

Best,

D

Duane L Petersen
December 9, 2015 at 5:42 PM

The answer to all the questions about the reason for this HOAX is one word POWER The megalomaniacs that we have as “leaders” make Machiavelli look like a pacifist.

Dano2
December 9, 2015 at 6:25 PM

Clearly there is still a market among the Faux “News” faithful for claiming that:

o Thousands of scientists;

o across a century and a half;

o in a wide range of specialties;

o in dozens of countries;

o on six continents;

o speaking scores of languages;

o having over ten thousand peer-reviewed papers;

o are involved in a complex plot to ‘fake’ AGW…

o but have been exposed by a few intrepid bloggers and fossil fuel billionaires.

Has there ever been – ever – a less likely conspiracy theory ever than this one? In the history of the world?

Best,

D

Pam Dunn
December 9, 2015 at 6:34 PM

clearly dumbo2; YOU ARE delusional and suck up the lamestream media spew of ignorance, lies and total BULL.

Duane L Petersen
December 9, 2015 at 8:41 PM

I have heard of nor read of anyone that has said that there is no warming because if there wasn’t any warming we would be in ice age like we were in the late 1700s and early 1600s. The only argument that the skeptics have is the amount of affect CO2 has on the temperatures. You have no accurate data that says the percentage that CO2 has resin the temps. over any length of time. To top this off with the lies that the warmingests started out with it makes it hard to believe anything they say.

AllenBarclayAllen
December 9, 2015 at 9:01 PM

No and think of the Hidiosey of it all. Their trying to tax Air without Representation from any nation ! Vote For Trump and Defund the United Nations !!

It has nothing to do with climate change, it does, however, prove that the earth currently has about 4 times less CO2 than what our plants need to obtain optimal growth. Bring on the increased levels of CO2 I say.

Dano2
December 10, 2015 at 5:03 PM

the earth currently has about 4 times less CO2 than what our plants need to obtain optimal growth.

OK since you can’t figure out how to find the link, here’s one small quote from it:
“Ambient CO2 level in outside air is about 340 ppm by volume. All plants grow well at this level but as CO2 levels are raised by 1,000 ppm photosynthesis increases proportionately resulting in more sugars and carbohydrates available for plant growth. Any actively growing crop in a tightly clad greenhouse with little or no ventilation can readily reduce the CO2 level during the day to as low as 200 ppm. The decrease in photosynthesis when CO2 level drops from 340 ppm to 200 ppm is similar to the increase when the CO2 levels are raised from 340 to about 1,300 ppm (Figure 1). As a rule of thumb, a drop in carbon dioxide levels below ambient has a stronger effect than supplementation above ambient. ”
What the above means, you idiot is that the earth is far below the optimum amount of CO2 in the atmosphere for growing plants – uh, that would be food to you moron.

Dano2
December 10, 2015 at 5:18 PM

I have a BS degree in Environmental Horticulture (in addition to a Master’s specialty in ecology). Which is why I can laugh extra hard at your assertion. Thanks for the LOLz!

Best,

D

Redbird
December 10, 2015 at 6:07 PM

Well, a BS degree – there’s a surprise!!!! LMFAO !!! BTW, if you don’t already know exactly what the concentration of CO2 is, then you’re definitely a fraud. No serious global warming idiot would not be able to spout that figure in his/her sleep

Dano2
December 10, 2015 at 6:33 PM

If you think we’ve increased 200 ppmv over that time, LOLO, you’re just the savvy investor I’ve been looking for to take advantage of my new, can’t miss investment opportuni-TEA!

PM me right away before its too late!

Best,

D

Pam Dunn
December 9, 2015 at 6:29 PM

Obama and Swift boat Kerry of the FAKE purple hearts have NO BUSINESS OR POWER to spend or promise US Dollars for ANY of this IDIOCY.

Robert Baker
December 9, 2015 at 7:05 PM

I get so sick and tired of this imbecilic garbage. First off, China, India, and I bet Russia (the bulk of the world population) will be exempt because they can not be controlled. But the whole gaggle of these quacks throw the responsibility of coughing up the billions on the working class of America. Has anyone ever heard anything about the shared responsibility of natural contribution, such as forest fires. The very thought of banning wood burning stoves makes my blood boil. The biggest contributor to so called global warming, I think, is all the gumballs that are zipping back and forth across the sky in huge jet airplanes spewing countless tons of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. I do not recall ever hearing a word about this, huh.

Tony
December 10, 2015 at 12:11 AM

Not to mention rockets blasting holes in the ozone layer.

Brin Jenkins
December 10, 2015 at 11:28 AM

I feel the high altitude hydrogen bombs that lit up much of the Pacific were not benign.

Brin Jenkins
December 10, 2015 at 11:26 AM

Not only the USA, as an English man I see this being imposed on the whole of Europe also. It’s Western civilisation that is being attacked and dismantled.

Forget conspiracy and consider the coincidence, it’s just not possible.

AllenBarclayAllen
December 9, 2015 at 9:32 PM

My suspicions have been Medically Proven. These Vegan Climatards suffer a Copper Deficiency of Balance caused by their Vegan Policies they want to inforce on the rest of the world ! A deficiency that Causes their Loonesey ! Question Do we let these Lunatics run the world ??

COPPER TOXICITY SYNDROME
COPPER AND THE BLOOD
One of the most common symptoms of biounavailabe copper or a frank copper deficiency is an anemia that appears identical to iron deficiency anemia. Those most affected are young adult women, and sometimes children. Vegetarians also tend to have too much and biounavailable copper and may be affected.
COPPER AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
Dr. Paul Eck called copper the “emotional mineral”. The reason for this is that copper and imbalances related to it have such a profound impact on the central nervous system. The psychiatric implications of copper imbalance are tremendous, even if copper did not affect other body systems. We regularly work with every known psychological and psychiatric condition and most of these individuals improve when copper is balanced in the body.

The overall effect of copper appears to be to enhance all emotional states in a human being. Dr. Eck felt that copper stimulates the diencephalons or old brain. Zinc is needed for the new brain or cortex. This brain is associated with the “higher emotions” such as reasoning, compassion and love.

When an imbalance between these exists, the person tends to revert to the use of the old brain, also called the animal brain or emotional brain. This can lead to a tendency for every possible emotional condition affecting human beings.

Nervous system dysfunctions. We have seen improvement in 20 or 30 different mental and emotional conditions ranging from moderate to suicidal depression and anxiety to violence, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, phobias, Tourette’s syndrome and schizophrenia. Others that respond amazingly well to balancing copper include epilepsy, ADD, ADHD, autism, delayed mental or emotional development and many others.

Panic attacks, migraines, spaciness, brain fog, mind racing, insomnia, nervousness, irritability and others also often involve copper. On this website are numerous articles that explore these conditions and often the relation to copper in greater detail.

Copper and world violence. Copper tends to enhance all the emotions, so violence can occur far more in those with copper excess – a common problem today in many parts of the world.

America is actually better in this regard because we can afford more beef and other meats. These foods are among the highest foods in zinc that balances copper in the body. Nations that cannot afford much meat may have worse copper imbalance, though this is not necessarily the case.

AllenBarclayAllen
December 9, 2015 at 9:38 PM

Want to be a Vegan Climatard now ?????????????????

AllenBarclayAllen
December 9, 2015 at 10:38 PM

Explains these Crazy Protesters Too !

Tony
December 10, 2015 at 12:09 AM

Commercial fertilizer leaches the copper out of the soil.

BlueStragler
December 10, 2015 at 12:21 AM

As a tax payer I resent the fact that my SA government has sent a delegation of 137 clever people to Paris.

I realize that it’s little consolation but the complete idiot Canadians have put into power actually sent 383 people to the Paris brainwash meet. Our number from our small population and outrageously high debt is more than the U.S., the U.K., and Australia combined! We’ve included anyone who is anyone with a French name and from Quebec, Indians, Eskimos, and an assortment of other “high profile” people, most of whom know absolutely nothing about how climate functions. However, it was a free trip (force) paid by the taxpayers so…

I don’t know how we’ll ever successfully recover from what history will show to be the greatest and most expensive hoax ever perpetuated on mankind.